Better uses for her lips . . . ?

Good heavens, the man was a menace, saying the most outrageous things.

And no matter the way West was glowering down at her, no matter how many times he called her “Mouse”, Mary didn’t want to go home yet. Had he any notion of what it had taken for her to get here? She’d slipped from her sister’s house under cover of darkness and walked two terrifying blocks to flag down a hack on Oxford Street. She’d braved brigands and bodily harm and more importantly, public ridicule. She knew everyone here was whispering about her. Knew what they thought of her. If she was brave enough to face the scandal that trailed in her wake, she was brave enough to face West’s handsome, hovering frown.

And she wasn’t leaving until she was ready.

“This conversation is growing as tiresome as that unimaginative nickname.” She stepped around him, lifting her skirts in her hands and aiming for the hum of the crowd in the larger room beyond. “I came here tonight to speak with the men on that list,” she said as a parting shot, “not to converse with a coward.”

She nearly escaped, too. But just as she emerged into the brighter lights of the ballroom, she felt his touch on her arm. No doubt it was her imagination, giving life to things that weren’t there, but she could almost believe there was a plea in that touch. She looked down at the shape of his gloves against the bare skin of her upper arm, her anger disintegrating.

“What do you want, West?” she sighed.

“I want you to dance with me,” came his answer.

She hesitated. He was a rake and a boor and she ought to want nothing at all to do with him. More to the point, she hated dancing. But drat it all, she was already letting him pull her into his arms. Her slippers were on the dance floor.

It would be rude to pull away now.

As he began to swing her around in large circles, she waited for the prickle of awareness, the fear that too many people were watching. Those dreaded emotions didn’t come. Instead, three years of dancing lessons, the preparation for her nonexistent come-out, proved useful now. The feel of his hand against the small of her back, guiding her with subtle pressure, made her want to follow wherever he might lead. Even if he led her to ruin.

The earlier flash of anger he’d shown seemed to have been shoved to a distant corner. Either that, or harnessed and held to a tighter rein. He was playing the perfect gentleman now, if a bit too quiet. Some devil in her made her want to test that restraint.

And so, as they began their second rotation around the dance floor, she peeked up at him through her lashes. “I’ve not yet had a chance to speak with the Duke of Harrington.” She lowered her voice. “Perhaps you could introduce me when this dance is over?”

“I don’t think so.” Though his tone stayed pleasant, his jaw tightened.

She thought of the news of the duke’s engagement, announced to an appreciative crowd not even a half hour ago. “He’s on the top of my list, and he just announced his intentions to marry the daughter of an Italian countess,” she countered, a little too loudly. She tempered her voice back to a whisper. “Who better to have sympathies for the Orsinian cause?”

West swung her with a bit more force. “The Duke of Harrington isn’t our man.”

“How would you know that, lurking in hallways as you have been?”

“I know,” he told her, “because his Grace is connected to my family. He comes to dinner at Cardwell House at least once a month. He is an impressively honorable man.”

“Oh.” She bit her lip as the room spun by. Drat it all, West had already ruled out the Duke of Harrington as a suspect? She thought of how quickly he’d dismissed her suspicions of the Duke of Rothesay as well. And the list he’d kept, now tucked in the inside pocket of his evening jacket. She’d have to make another one, and the thought of it poked at her.

Couldn’t he see? This was why they needed to do this together, why they ought to share their plans and suspicions with each other. She shouldn’t have to waste her time considering leads that led nowhere. “Who else, then?” she pressed, trying to remember the other names written on the now-purloined list. “If you’ve already discounted Harrington and Rothesay, you must have an idea of who else we should be considering.”

Instead of answering the question, he glowered down at her. “Tell me, Miss Channing. Why no chaperone this evening? Did Poor Mrs. Greaves die in a fit of apoplexy after your visit to the brothel? Or has your stubbornness gotten her sacked?”

Mary sighed in frustration. Why was he refusing to discuss this with her, avoiding the topic as if it might prove a deadly disease? She couldn’t help but feel disappointed in his lack of enthusiasm for the chase. During that Sunday visit to the brothel, she’d imagined . . . well, she’d foolishly imagined him as a white knight, riding in on his charger to the save the day. But perhaps that was the problem with allowing her imagination free rein.

So often, heroes only existed on the pages of books.

“No, Mrs. Greaves is still alive and gainfully employed, if a bit more suspicious of me now,” she replied, not wanting to talk about housekeepers. Or chaperones. Or brothels. “I claimed to have returned to the wrong pew, and she pretended to believe me rather than consider the less palatable alternative, I think. And why do you care whether or not I have a proper chaperone? I am already ruined.” He ought to know, given his starring role in her shame. Although, she could perhaps look back on that night and admit that Westmore could not be held entirely responsible for that debacle.

Heaven knew she had played her own starring role in that bit of folly.

His head lowered toward her own, until his lips brushed her ear. “Why I care is scarcely the question, Mouse.” This time, the sound of that nickname sent a shiver rippling down her spine—one he could no doubt feel through the indecent press of his hand, drat the man. With his breath warm against her ear, she could almost imagine it was meant as an endearment instead of an insult. “The fact is that I do care, whether I ought to or not.”

His words made her head feel fizzy, shaken up inside. Surely it was just the unaccustomed nature of dancing, and not any real meaning behind such dangerously delicious words. He didn’t care about her. He couldn’t care. He was a man with a reputation, a man who sought only his own pleasure, and didn’t give a fig about what others thought or wanted.

She needed to remember that, even as her pulse bounded beneath her skin.

His head dipped toward her ear again. “How did you even come to be here tonight, if you didn’t bring a proper chaperone? Did you steal Ashington’s coach?”

“If you must know, I slipped out of the house after my sister fell asleep and summoned a hackney cab.”

His fingers tightened against the small of her back. “You took a cab here? By yourself?”

“I am afraid I lack a fairy godmother to conjure a more spectacular means of conveyance.” She hesitated, wondering why his fingers were suddenly gripping her right hand with more ferocity. “And I also lacked the pumpkin.” She met his gaze, feeling the edges of her mouth wanting to turn up, in spite of her continued annoyance with him. “Probably on account of the fact that people have a dreadful habit of urinating through the garden fence. Hardly a good location for growing vegetables.”

West glared down at her, his eyes lingering on the slight upward tilt of her entirely too-kissable lips. She was teasing him, clearly.

But had she any concept of what could happen to an innocent woman flitting about the streets of London? Riding alone in a hackney cab, traipsing darkened streets? Christ, even this dance floor was dangerous. He could feel the curious eyes on them, the appreciative glances she garnered from too many men. The way the women stared at her, jealousy sharpening their claws. He felt an overwhelming need to protect her.

He clenched his teeth. “It isn’t safe to be out in the city after dark.”

“You prowl the streets at night.” She shrugged, the motion pulling against the grip he had on her. “I see you go out, nearly every night.”

Her admission that she watched for him through her window made his feet stumble a bit. So, she spent her evenings peeking out her curtains, did she? It made him feel smug that she had sought a glimpse of him the past week, the same way he had looked for her.

But not so smug he could forget the danger.

Somewhere on this dance floor might very well be one of the men they sought. The thought that the traitors might be watching them now made his feet began to slow. The urge to whisk her away, ensure her safety, burned like an ember beneath his skin.

What was wrong with him, to be reacting in this manner?

“Speaking of finding one’s bed . . .” he started, but then stopped as her lips parted with a soft gasp. He’d only meant to say perhaps it was time to find hers tonight, but he was loath to correct the misimpression, especially given that her gloved hand had just gone limp in his own.

Just to their right, he could see the open doors that led to the front foyer. He steered her toward them, and was relieved when she willingly followed him. Perhaps she thought he intended to walk with her outside? Steal a gentle kiss or three in Harrington’s garden?

God, she really was a naive thing.

And trust was a matter best reserved for men willing to play the proper gentleman.

As they stepped out into the warm summer night, he raised a hand to a waiting footman. “Please bring the Cardwell coach around.”

Surprise shaped her mouth into an “O”. “Are you leaving already?”

“I am sending you home.”

Her hand went tight again, the warmth in her eyes instantly shuttered. She twisted her hand out of his. “I will go home when I am ready, and not a moment before. You can’t just send me home as if you own me.”

West crossed his arms, blocking her way back inside. If she wouldn’t have a care for herself, he had no choice but to play the role of chivalrous knight, however tarnished his armor. For a moment, he considered the image she presented, dark waves of hair swinging wildly over one temple, her cheeks the sort of pink a man would gladly die trying to bring out in a woman’s skin. In spite of his resolve to stay far, far away, in spite of his determination to see her nowhere but home, lust speared him, sharp and unfortunate.

“If I owned you,” he growled, giving himself over to the truth, “I’d be a damned sight less frustrated. And your cheeks would be flushed with pleasure instead of annoyance.”